Year: 2012

Recently Girnar Retail Pvt. Ltd. announced the official launch of PriceDekho.com a product comparison-shopping platform for Indian buyers. With PriceDekho.com, users can compare product features & price; ask for other users’ opinion about a certain product, and then make well-informed buying decisions for a wide variety of products from various local as well as global brands through the available third party retailers.

Indian buyers now will be able to compare price online for mobile devices from 57 different cellphone manufacturers being Samsung, Nokia, Micromax, HTC, Sony Ericsson, BlackBerry, Apple the top ones, whereas they can compare and order cameras online from the brands like Canon, Nikon, Samsung, Sony and more.

Apart from these, users can also compare prices for laptops, printers, scanners, MP3 Players, home theaters, TVs, and many more of electronic gadgets. Books’ section includes children storybooks, classic and modern novels, books based on global topics by the talk of the town authors. PriceDekho also has a separate section meant for housewives, who can now place orders for home appliances and baby products online. This product range includes stuff like baby diapers, bath and skin care, clothing and shoes, toys, and baby furniture, whereas home appliances available include food processors, microwave ovens, OTGs, Induction cook-tops, mixer-grinders, electric kettles, rice cookers, sandwich makers, air conditioners, vacuum and window cleaners, and more.

Buyers at PriceDekho.com are free to judge on where to buy. That means users can choose from a number of online retailers being Infibeam, Sulekha, Zoomin.com, Tradus, Homeshop18, Greendust, Mirchimart, Kaunsa, Myvirtualplaza, Shopping.Indiatimes, etc.

PriceDekho employs a faster query processing technology that brings quick search results to customers and offers easy navigation, which enables customers to surf through the most popular brands, the most popular products and the best sellers on one screen. For a couple of categories, which may not support comparison, expert reviews can be of a great help for users to finalize a purchase decision.

Recently leading music label Saregama India launched an internet radio streaming service on its web portal. Saregama India’s radio streaming service will offer users a wide range of genres from its catalogue which includes Malayalam, Punjabi folk music, instrumental tracks, Marathi, Carnatic, Hindustani classical, Bengali Rabindra Sangeet and film hits, Tamil film, Telugu and devotional tracks and Hindi film classics.

Digital marketing company Getit has entered into a partnership with Yahoo to power results under Yahoo Local. As a result of this association, Getit’s entire database of over 3 million business listings will be accessible to Yahoo users on Yahoo Local. Any search conducted on Yahoo Local will automatically land on a co-branded section which will be powered by Getit. Currently Yahoo with 40 Million unique users has an engagement rate of over 100%. Yahoo Front Page averages 5.6 million unique users every day. This association will help to create further brand awareness and popularity of GETIT among masses.

Besides this, for searches conducted on Yahoo! web search which correspond to a local need, Yahoo! users will have the benefit of the listings powered by Getit, depending upon relevance, location and keywords.

Commenting on the association, Sidharth Gupta, CEO, Getit said, “This is a very significant partnership since it brings the power of Getit’s databases to Yahoo! users and likewise brings the immense distribution of Yahoo! to Getit’s advertisers and SME’s. It is a privilege to be partnering a leading brand like Yahoo! to bring powerful yet simple solutions to our users and advertisers.”

Mobile video and media company Vuclip has partnered with Maxus India to promote the Trendify brand campaign for Nokia Lumia 510 on Vuclip’s mobile video portal and social networks. Currently around 65% of Vuclip’s 14 million Indian users share videos primarily through Facebook and Twitter, making it the ideal platform to integrate “TRENDIFY” and allow users to experience what “TRENDIFY” means in the language of Nokia Lumia 510.

Through this partnership, Nokia, Maxus India and Vuclip aim to empower the youth to discover and create new trends in time and spearhead innovative social media campaign on mobiles. As part of the product innovation involving a seamless integration with Vuclip, for the first time, the ‘Share’ button has been changed on a video portal to reflect the brand campaign. The ‘Share’ button for each video has temporarily been replaced with ‘TRENDIFY’, encouraging users to now trend their videos directly on m.trendify.in at the click of a button, which in turn can be shared on Facebook, Twitter and other social sharing sites. More than 55 million videos on Vuclip are expected to be viewed in 2 weeks through this campaign. Besides its mobile portal, Vuclip has also integrated Trendify with its own social media properties to further amplify the campaign leading to virality, where it has extended Nokia’s opportunity for lucky users to win a NOKIA LUMIA 510.

Commenting on the integration, Meera Chopra, Vice President – Head of Advertising Sales (APAC & ME), Vuclip said, “We are delighted that Vuclip has been chosen to showcase and integrate “TRENDIFY”. This fun and path breaking campaign is yet another proof of how Vuclip is fast becoming an integral part of aggressive digital campaigns for leading brands like Nokia. In one of the most unique ways of perfect integration on the site, Vuclip has temporarily renamed the social “SHARE” link on all its videos as ‘TRENDIFY’. This not only helps build a stronger brand recall but also builds a “cool quotient” for the youth who now TRENDIFies, instead of just sharing.”

Vuclip delivers over 1.2 billion minutes of videos on as many as 5500 different mobile handsets globally every month. In India, Vuclip has over 14 million monthly active users out of the total 45 million users globally.

Samsung has launched the Galaxy Music Duos smartphone in the Indian Market. This dual-SIM capable music centric Android smartphone is now available on the Samsung India eStore.
Priced at Rs.9,199, the Galaxy Music Duos features the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS. It features a 3-inch display with 320×240 pixels resolution, has 512MB of built-in RAM, a 3 megapixel camera, 4GB of built-in storage, a microSD card slot and a 1,300 mAh battery.

Recently Google released a list of the best android apps in 2012. Some of these apps were launched in 2012 while others issued updates. Almost all of them are available globally and offer a great user experience on both tablets and phones. Except for one app, majority of these apps are free to install.

Zuhaib Khan, Co-founder Shopatplaces.com, is a finance geek turned entrepreneur. He has worked in Investment banking and Private equity firms like JP Morgan, Mape Advisory and Casa Capital. An MBA grad from FMS, Delhi, he has a keen interest in photography and is trying to hone his ‘shooting’ skills. His loves in life include travel, food and Shopatplaces, not necessarily in this order.

WD: So Zuhaib tell us what is your site all about? What problem are you solving?

Zuhaib: Shopatplaces delivers Authentic Products from Places Famous for them to the customer’s doorstep. Hence, the tagline, ‘Famous Products. Best Buys.’

We knew that Pashmina shawls of best quality originated only from Kashmir or that the best handcrafted Bandhej suits were from Jaipur. And they were in demand perpetually. The problem was of availability, quality assurance and authenticity verification, coupled with the fact that when these products were made available in other parts of the country, the good quality ones were exorbitantly priced. All because of the too many unnecessary levels in the supply chain.

We had our task cut out there and then. If we could deliver Authentic Products from Places Famous for them to our customer’s doorstep, we will be certainly adding value as a retailer. As of now, Shopatplaces.com is in the Beta stage and we are already delivering our products across India.

WD: Tell us the story of how it started and the challenges you have faced?

Zuhaib: The idea for Shopatplaces came to us in September 2011, while I was working in JP Morgan’s London IB office while Sherfur was working in the Procurement department of Cadbury (now, Mondelēz International). We used to travel a lot while working for our respective organizations and every time we visited a new place, there were regular requests from our loved ones to ‘get something unique from that place’.

And that is how Shopatplaces was born! A site which will provide unique, hard-to-get products from places famous for them to its customers. We believe we are re-imagining the way traders operated on the famed silk route once upon a time.

Setting up a robust vendor base and supply chain was our biggest challenge so we left our jobs and traveled across the country for 6 months. It was a great learning phase for us, being on the ground and meeting the people who actually create all this superb quality stuff. This was a new domain for us and similar was the case for many SMEs and artisans who had never entered into a legal vendor agreement, ever.

Learning their challenges has helped us in working together in a better manner. For instance, now we understand that an intricate piece of Chikan apparel from Lucknow can take up to 6 months to finish. So, sourcing copies of this kind of product when we get an order from the customer is not possible at all.

We continue to face new challenges everyday and each day is exciting at Shopatplaces. Ultimate aim is always the same, keeping our customers smiling.

WD: Who are the Founders and their backgrounds?

Zuhaib: The founding team is comprised of two, Sherfur and myself, Zuhaib. Sherfur has worked in the Procurement and Supply Chain division of erstwhile Cadbury after getting his MBA from NITIE, Mumbai. I worked in various firms like JP Morgan, Mape Advisory and Casa Capital during my career in finance after finishing my MBA from FMS, Delhi. Both of us were classmates during our engineering days in Jamia, Delhi. We are Delhi boys and have traveled across the country for our work earlier and now for getting unique products for Shopatplaces.

On the personal front, Sherfur is a Chelsea fan and an Age Of Empires junkie while I love traveling and gorging on food from different places.

WD: Why is your site so different when there are already ecommerce websites selling similar products?

Zuhaib: We have been true to our Raison d’être of ‘Shop At Places’. We have on our site only and only those products which are famous from a particular place. Be it Filigree jewelry from Orissa, Brass jewelry from Uttar Pradesh, Tussar silk stoles from Jharkhand, Chikankari apparel from Lucknow and so on and so forth. We make these hard to find products available to our customers and provide assurance of quality with a promise of best buy. Our idea of best buy is pretty simple, say, we have leather bags from Kanpur, we will sell them at a price which is lower than the retail price of those bags in Kanpur itself. If we beat those markets where these products are manufactured, we automatically beat retail markets in all other cities.

As far as we know, we are the first ones in India to execute this idea of ‘Shop At Places’. If we talk about physical retail, then FabIndia is our close peer. Again, we are not into handcrafted products only.

WD: What technology platform is your site built on? Is it in-house?

Zuhaib: The IT team has developed the site using PHP on OpenCart. The entire UI has been developed in-house.

WD: What initiatives are you planning in the next 2-3 years?

Zuhaib: Our short term plan is to have authentic products from all states of India within the first 12 months of our launch. We also want to increase the number of categories we offer to our customers.

Our long term plan will be to provide internationally known products like Italian leather jackets or Indonesian batik print apparel to our users. In a few years, we hope to be the most trusted retailer in the minds of our customers.

WD: Which locations is it available ?

Zuhaib: We are already delivering orders across India and have been getting orders from both Metros and small cities. We hope to start delivering internationally soon.

WD: What is your Marketing/Promotional approach?

Zuhaib: Initial traction has come from various social media platforms. However, being in the niche product categories as we are, our initial focus will be on Offline / On-ground marketing campaigns to reach out to our target segment. Once the initial response is captured and further refined, we shall be replicating the same message via online mass mediums as well.

In near future, you will increasingly find our presence at places where our target group is, be it offices, malls, exhibitions or on online platforms.

WD: Did you raise any funding? If you want to raise funds do you want to be contacted by Investors ?

Zuhaib: No, we have not raised any funds. We are bootstrapping this business from our own funds and will not go out in the market for fund raising till the time we need a significant infusion.

We are actively scouting for mentors though as we believe that advice of experienced mentors is worth much more than funds at disposal. Mentors’ guidance can save us from committing many mistakes while making sure that we do not lose focus of the goal we want to achieve. We are open to being contacted by experienced industry veterans who can guide and mentor this young team.

WD: What is the overall plan going forward?

Zuhaib: Our plan is to cover all India states within 12 months of our launch and start delivering internationally known products to our customers post that. We plan to grow fast once we have a specific number of satisfied customers on the ground, as they will be our brand ambassadors.

WD:Your take on the current eCommerce scene in India ?

Zuhaib: Many other experienced people are more qualified than us to answer this question. We believe that we are at the tipping point of e-commerce in India. The wave has not even started till now. Next 4-5 years will see a drastic change in the way Indians transact online and the categories from which they buy.

Did you like this interview ? If you have questions for Zuhaib, do put it on the comments section. You can connect with Zuhaib on Linkedin. He can also be reached at zuhaib@shopatplaces.com

Online travel portal Travelguru.com has partnered with Indian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) to offer online booking for Ashok Group of Hotels. This partnership aims to offer Travelguru users with an opportunity to book Ashok group of hotels online. At the same time, it will also give ITDC an access to the online customer segment.

Commenting on this partnership, Travelguru’s Regional Head – North and East India, Sandeep Srivastava said, “It is our goal to bring more and more hotels online for our customers; in-line with the same thought, we are happy to announce our alliance with Ashok Group of hotels. As of now, 14 hotels from Ashok group including hotels in Jaipur and Mysore will be featured on Travelguru.com. We expect this alliance to be beneficial for both the parties and to develop into a sustainable partnership.”

The Ashok Group is owned and operated by the Indian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) and is managed as a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU). ITDC has a network of 8 Ashok hotels and six joint venture hotels in the country. ITDC is owned by the Government of India and is responsible for hospitality, education and retail development in the country.

On Friday, Facebook announced the launch of the Poke App for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is an advanced version of Facebook’s original app, the ‘poke’. This feature has now been reinvented to be called ‘Facebook Poke’ and allows users to send fleeting messages, pokes, photos and 10-second videos to friends.

The messages expire after a set period of time, from 1 to 10 seconds, and cannot be retrieved by either party again. Facebook said,”With the Poke app, you can poke or send a message, photo, or video to Facebook friends to share what you’re up to in a lightweight way.”

A user can choose from a set of icons at the bottom of the screen to send a poke, type a 120-character message, open the camera to snap a picture – (an existing photo cannot be used)- or shoot a 10-second video. After this, the user can decide how long he/she wants the recipient to see the message for.